68. To E. Repos
Dear Sir,
As you are kind enough still to remember about the "Ave Maris Stella" it would be inexcusable of me to forget it. My first manuscript having gone astray I spent the whole of yesterday in rewriting this very simple song, of which you will receive two versions at once by the next possible occasion; one for mezzosoprano voice with Piano or Harmonium accompaniment, the other for 4 male voices with a little Organ accompaniment. In this latter please excuse my very bad writing, over and above whatever there may be defective in the composition. I cannot, here, have several copyists at my disposal as in Germany. The only one whom I can employ is ill—and I have not time to wait till he gets well, for from tomorrow I undertake my pilgrimage to Assisi and Loretto—after which I shall make a villeggiatura of at least six weeks at Grotta-mare (near Ancona, on the shores of the Adriatic).
I depend on your kindness to send me the final proofs of the "Ave
Maris Stella" to the address which I will give you shortly.
How shall I manage to get you my biographical notice published in 1843 in the voluminous collection of the Biographae Pascallet? I really do not know. This notice is both the most exact, the best edited, and the kindest of all that have appeared about me in French. Mr. Fetis quotes it in my article of the Biographie univ. des Musiciens, and I have asked Mr. le Chanoine Barbier de Montault to look for it at Angot the editor's.—The entire collection of the Biographaie Pascallet must be, amongst others, in the library of Mr. Emile de Girardin, but the illustrious publicist has so many great matters to attend to that I should scruple to trouble him about such a trifle.
In any case it will be easy to unearth our unhappy little Opus in question in the Bibliotheque imperiale, where, if necessary, it can be copied for the use of Mr. le Ch. de Montault.
Please, dear sir, count on my very sincerely affectionate and devoted sentiments.
F. Liszt
Rome, July 1st, 1868
A thousand thanks for your kind sending of the Repertoire of St.
Sulpice, which is this moment come.